July 17, 2009
.the time has come.
I have wanted to post about this perfect album that I am in absolute love with. I listen to it everyday sometimes 3 or 4 times a day.
The sweet country twang in her voice and the AM radio crackles. Throw in a little bit of those classic girl groups, fresh, folksy, music you just know they love to play. Beautiful guitar sounds.
Without further ado A collaboration between Zooey Deschanel and M.Ward......SHE & HIM!!
They do an amazing cover of The Beatles "I Should Have Known Better" which could quite possibly be my favorite song on the album if it weren't for "Black Hole". To be honest every song on this album has something special about it.
Take some time and listen to the beauty of this album:
Zooey was also recently photographed for GQ; prettiest girl in the world! (Though I much prefer her natural look sans makeup)
Originally an M.Ward song, Zooey steps in for vocals. How does it sound?
Of course it is spectacular once again!
The sweet country twang in her voice and the AM radio crackles. Throw in a little bit of those classic girl groups, fresh, folksy, music you just know they love to play. Beautiful guitar sounds.
Without further ado A collaboration between Zooey Deschanel and M.Ward......SHE & HIM!!
They do an amazing cover of The Beatles "I Should Have Known Better" which could quite possibly be my favorite song on the album if it weren't for "Black Hole". To be honest every song on this album has something special about it.
Take some time and listen to the beauty of this album:
Zooey was also recently photographed for GQ; prettiest girl in the world! (Though I much prefer her natural look sans makeup)
Originally an M.Ward song, Zooey steps in for vocals. How does it sound?
Of course it is spectacular once again!
July 15, 2009
.the real deal.
How I just discovered this band this very year is beyond me but I would like to thank my good friend Lionel for introducing me to these kids.
The Real Kids were a punk band from Boston who formed in 1972 (originally called The Kids).
Their first album was recorded in 1977 Self Titled of course.
I just ordered their 1999 release "Better Be Good" from my place of work. I scored the vinyl for only $9.90 no shipping. There certainly are perks at this job sometimes!
The album is 1977-79 studio recordings, alternate takes from the first LP and demos. I absolutely love this album and need you to have a listen!
The first and most popular track on the album is "All Kindsa Girls" (An upbeat powerpop danceable track that makes me happy)
I would have killed to see this show!
Checkout clips of the album tracks on Imeem or Tower.
July 3, 2009
.this is absolutely appalling.
I really can't grasp how humans can be so ignorant, bigoted,closed-minded, discriminatory, influenced, intolerant,one-sided, predisposed (I could go on). "That's Texas" is not a fucking excuse for this behemoth behavior!
Below I have posted an article Written by Dan Savage about the incident at The Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth, Texas on June 28 2009. I want to help spread this story nationwide.
Fort Worth Police Chief: That Faggot Had It Coming
Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 4:18 PM
Most residents of Fort Worth have never even seen the inside of a gay bar. Fort Worth's police chief Jeff Halstead is counting on that fact—counting on the average person's ignorance about gay bars and certain stereotypes about gay men—to get a half a dozen Forth Worth police officers off the hook for conducting a violent raid on a Forth Worth gay bar, the Rainbow Lounge, late last Saturday night. Seven men were arrested during the raid, which took place on the 40th anniversary of the raid on the Stonewall Inn that kick-started the modern gay rights movement, and one of those men—Chad Gibson—remains in intensive care with a brain injury. Gibson may not survive.
The officers who raided the Rainbow Lounge claim that the men in the bar made "advances" on them—and Forth Worth's police chief is backing them up:
Monday, police chief Jeff Halstead said the officers' actions are being investigated. However, he also said that officers that entered the bar during the scheduled inspection were touched inappropriately.
"You're touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that's offensive," he said. "I'm happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that."
Allow me to translate the chief's comments: "Them faggots in that thar bar touched mah officers and now they're complainin' about some rough stuff and one little ol' faggot with a brain injury? Those perverts should be grateful they're alive."
This is a classic example of the Gay Panic Defense. In the very recent past all a straight man who brutally murdered a gay man had to say was, "He made a pass at me!", and the jury would ignore the evidence and let the murderer off. The Gay Panic Defense doesn't fly in many courts of law these days but it still has currency in the court of public opinion. And the chief of police in Forth Worth, a major U.S. city, is attempting to use the Gay Panic Defense to convince the citizens of Fort Worth to ignore the evidence—to ignore photographic evidence and credible eyewitness accounts—and let his officers off.
And you'll never guess who the police are accusing of being the groper: Chad Gibson, the one man arrested at the Rainbow Lounge who can't defend himself and may never be able to give his side of the story. But another person at the bar witnessed Gibson's arrest:
"They were hyped up. They were loaded for bear," said Todd Camp, a veteran journalist who was there celebrating his birthday with friends. "They were just randomly grabbing people, telling them they were drunk."
Camp told me he has been in bars during TABC/police "checks" before, "and it was never anything like this." Usually, he said, officers discreetly walk through, looking for anybody who has had too much. This was different. "They were shoving patrons," Camp said, "asking, 'How much have you had to drink?'"
...
"[Gibson] was taken down hard," said Camp, with "four or five" officers wrestling him to the floor inside the club. Cellphone photos shot by patrons and posted to blogs show a person being held face down by officers in a short hallway inside the club, then show a dent in the wall where his head was apparently banged.
The police claim that Gibson wasn't injured when those four or five cops slammed him to the floor of the bar, but after his arrest, when, drunk and handcuffed, Gibson somehow fell and hit his head on the pavement outside the bar.
All of this is bullshit.
I've been in a million gay bars. I've been in gay bars on multiple occasions when the police came in to check everyone's IDs and make sure no minors were being served. Gay men don't grope police officers when they enter gay bars. I find it inconceivable that the gay men drinking in the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth responded to a raid by attempting to grope the police officers. This "they groped us!" shit is a lie. As the owner of the bar, J.R. Schrock, put it at the protest the night after the raid:
"The groping of the police officer—really? We're gay, but we're not dumb," Schrock said to the crowd that gathered at the bar Sunday afternoon. "That is a lie, and I am appalled by it."
Jeff Halstead can't be allowed to use the Gay Panic Defense. His officers weren't groped, no one was "touched and advanced." Homophobic cops raided a gay bar, roughed up the patrons, and a young man is in the hospital and may die.
Some will say that this was just an ill-timed raid on a gay bar in Texas, of all places, one that got out of control. So what's the big deal? But this is exactly the kind of state-sponsored violence that gays and lesbians fought back against at Stonewall 40 years ago. Gay men all over the country are going to have to speak up and defend the patrons of the Rainbow Lounge. We can't allow the chief of police in Fort Worth to use the Gay Panic Defense or exploit stereotypes about gay men—so sexually reckless that they can't even keep their hands off cops during a raid!—to get away with violating the civil rights of gay men in Fort Worth or murdering Chad Gibson.
UPDATE: More on Chad Gibson's condition:
The blood clot could take from six months to two years to dissolve, according to the update. Gibson, shown in a picture from facebook.com, will likely remain in the hospital for the rest of the week and will be referred to a neurosurgeon for follow-up treatment. Surgery is reportedly not being considered at this time.
Discussion is under way about the establishment of a medical fund to assist Gibson. His hospital bill will undoubtedly be enormous, and it is unlikely that he will ever recover any of those medical expenses from the City of Fort Worth. Police officers and other government employees are protected by state law from liability in any legal action that arises in connection with the performance of their official duties, unless they are involved in misconduct or broke laws.
UPDATE 2: Someone needs to put this follow-up question to Fort Worth's police chief:
If Chad Gibson—the 160-pound, 26-year-old gay man that it took five of your officers to subdue—groped one of your officers, and if it was Gibson's lewd action that caused your officers to go absolutely apeshit, then surely Gibson—who is in an intensive care unit and may not survive his injuries—was charged with assault, right?
Wrong:
Officers then went to the Rainbow Lounge, which had opened about a week ago. They encountered two drunk people who made "sexually explicit movements" toward officers and another who grabbed a TABC agent's groin, according to the police report.
No one was arrested for assault but about half a dozen people were arrested on charges of public intoxication, according to police records. Police Chief Jeff Halstead said Gibson was the patron who grabbed at the agent's groin.
So... Chad Gibson sexually assaulted a Fort Worth police officer and, according to the Fort Worth's chief of police, Gibson's assault not only prompted but justified the actions of his officers at the Rainbow Room, but... Gibson wasn't charged with assault.
Can someone please ask the chief of police to explain how that works?
UPDATE 3: Via Slog commenter jasonzenobia: The Fort Worth Police Department's email address is fwpdweb@fortworthpd.com and the number for FWPD's internal affairs office is 817.392.4270. That's the number to call to report officer misconduct. Joel Burns is the openly gay member of the Fort Worth city council and he's been all over this. You can reach him at his email is Joel.Burns@fortworthgov.org.
UPDATE 4: I've heard from folks in Fort Worth that Joel Burns' office is being slammed with furious phone calls and emails about the raid on the Rainbow Lounge and the assault on Chad Gibson. Burns, however, has taken action on this and has called for an investigation and is doing everything an openly-gay elected official is supposed to do in a circumstance like this. If you're itching to send an outraged emails, Sloggers, I'd urge you to send emails to the six Fort Worth councilmembers who haven't joined with Burns and two of his colleagues in calling for a full and independent investigation into the appalling raid on the Rainbow Lounge.
Councilmember W.B. "Zim" Zimmerman
817-392-8803
District3@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Danny Scarth
817-392-8804
District4@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Frank Moss
817-392-8805
District5@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Jungus Jordan
817-392-8806
District6@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Carter Burdette
817-392-8807
District7@fortworthgov.org
And send an email to the mayor, Mike Moncreif, who has yet to make a statement:
Mayor Mike Moncrief
817-392-6118
mike.moncrief@fortworthgov.org
Tell them the whole country is shocked and outraged and that you're appalled by their failure to join their colleagues Joel Burns, Sal Espino, and Kathleen Hicks in calling for an investigation into the raid on the Rainbow Lounge and the assault on Chad Gibson.
Below I have posted an article Written by Dan Savage about the incident at The Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth, Texas on June 28 2009. I want to help spread this story nationwide.
Fort Worth Police Chief: That Faggot Had It Coming
Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 4:18 PM
Most residents of Fort Worth have never even seen the inside of a gay bar. Fort Worth's police chief Jeff Halstead is counting on that fact—counting on the average person's ignorance about gay bars and certain stereotypes about gay men—to get a half a dozen Forth Worth police officers off the hook for conducting a violent raid on a Forth Worth gay bar, the Rainbow Lounge, late last Saturday night. Seven men were arrested during the raid, which took place on the 40th anniversary of the raid on the Stonewall Inn that kick-started the modern gay rights movement, and one of those men—Chad Gibson—remains in intensive care with a brain injury. Gibson may not survive.
The officers who raided the Rainbow Lounge claim that the men in the bar made "advances" on them—and Forth Worth's police chief is backing them up:
Monday, police chief Jeff Halstead said the officers' actions are being investigated. However, he also said that officers that entered the bar during the scheduled inspection were touched inappropriately.
"You're touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that's offensive," he said. "I'm happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that."
Allow me to translate the chief's comments: "Them faggots in that thar bar touched mah officers and now they're complainin' about some rough stuff and one little ol' faggot with a brain injury? Those perverts should be grateful they're alive."
This is a classic example of the Gay Panic Defense. In the very recent past all a straight man who brutally murdered a gay man had to say was, "He made a pass at me!", and the jury would ignore the evidence and let the murderer off. The Gay Panic Defense doesn't fly in many courts of law these days but it still has currency in the court of public opinion. And the chief of police in Forth Worth, a major U.S. city, is attempting to use the Gay Panic Defense to convince the citizens of Fort Worth to ignore the evidence—to ignore photographic evidence and credible eyewitness accounts—and let his officers off.
And you'll never guess who the police are accusing of being the groper: Chad Gibson, the one man arrested at the Rainbow Lounge who can't defend himself and may never be able to give his side of the story. But another person at the bar witnessed Gibson's arrest:
"They were hyped up. They were loaded for bear," said Todd Camp, a veteran journalist who was there celebrating his birthday with friends. "They were just randomly grabbing people, telling them they were drunk."
Camp told me he has been in bars during TABC/police "checks" before, "and it was never anything like this." Usually, he said, officers discreetly walk through, looking for anybody who has had too much. This was different. "They were shoving patrons," Camp said, "asking, 'How much have you had to drink?'"
...
"[Gibson] was taken down hard," said Camp, with "four or five" officers wrestling him to the floor inside the club. Cellphone photos shot by patrons and posted to blogs show a person being held face down by officers in a short hallway inside the club, then show a dent in the wall where his head was apparently banged.
The police claim that Gibson wasn't injured when those four or five cops slammed him to the floor of the bar, but after his arrest, when, drunk and handcuffed, Gibson somehow fell and hit his head on the pavement outside the bar.
All of this is bullshit.
I've been in a million gay bars. I've been in gay bars on multiple occasions when the police came in to check everyone's IDs and make sure no minors were being served. Gay men don't grope police officers when they enter gay bars. I find it inconceivable that the gay men drinking in the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth responded to a raid by attempting to grope the police officers. This "they groped us!" shit is a lie. As the owner of the bar, J.R. Schrock, put it at the protest the night after the raid:
"The groping of the police officer—really? We're gay, but we're not dumb," Schrock said to the crowd that gathered at the bar Sunday afternoon. "That is a lie, and I am appalled by it."
Jeff Halstead can't be allowed to use the Gay Panic Defense. His officers weren't groped, no one was "touched and advanced." Homophobic cops raided a gay bar, roughed up the patrons, and a young man is in the hospital and may die.
Some will say that this was just an ill-timed raid on a gay bar in Texas, of all places, one that got out of control. So what's the big deal? But this is exactly the kind of state-sponsored violence that gays and lesbians fought back against at Stonewall 40 years ago. Gay men all over the country are going to have to speak up and defend the patrons of the Rainbow Lounge. We can't allow the chief of police in Fort Worth to use the Gay Panic Defense or exploit stereotypes about gay men—so sexually reckless that they can't even keep their hands off cops during a raid!—to get away with violating the civil rights of gay men in Fort Worth or murdering Chad Gibson.
UPDATE: More on Chad Gibson's condition:
The blood clot could take from six months to two years to dissolve, according to the update. Gibson, shown in a picture from facebook.com, will likely remain in the hospital for the rest of the week and will be referred to a neurosurgeon for follow-up treatment. Surgery is reportedly not being considered at this time.
Discussion is under way about the establishment of a medical fund to assist Gibson. His hospital bill will undoubtedly be enormous, and it is unlikely that he will ever recover any of those medical expenses from the City of Fort Worth. Police officers and other government employees are protected by state law from liability in any legal action that arises in connection with the performance of their official duties, unless they are involved in misconduct or broke laws.
UPDATE 2: Someone needs to put this follow-up question to Fort Worth's police chief:
If Chad Gibson—the 160-pound, 26-year-old gay man that it took five of your officers to subdue—groped one of your officers, and if it was Gibson's lewd action that caused your officers to go absolutely apeshit, then surely Gibson—who is in an intensive care unit and may not survive his injuries—was charged with assault, right?
Wrong:
Officers then went to the Rainbow Lounge, which had opened about a week ago. They encountered two drunk people who made "sexually explicit movements" toward officers and another who grabbed a TABC agent's groin, according to the police report.
No one was arrested for assault but about half a dozen people were arrested on charges of public intoxication, according to police records. Police Chief Jeff Halstead said Gibson was the patron who grabbed at the agent's groin.
So... Chad Gibson sexually assaulted a Fort Worth police officer and, according to the Fort Worth's chief of police, Gibson's assault not only prompted but justified the actions of his officers at the Rainbow Room, but... Gibson wasn't charged with assault.
Can someone please ask the chief of police to explain how that works?
UPDATE 3: Via Slog commenter jasonzenobia: The Fort Worth Police Department's email address is fwpdweb@fortworthpd.com and the number for FWPD's internal affairs office is 817.392.4270. That's the number to call to report officer misconduct. Joel Burns is the openly gay member of the Fort Worth city council and he's been all over this. You can reach him at his email is Joel.Burns@fortworthgov.org.
UPDATE 4: I've heard from folks in Fort Worth that Joel Burns' office is being slammed with furious phone calls and emails about the raid on the Rainbow Lounge and the assault on Chad Gibson. Burns, however, has taken action on this and has called for an investigation and is doing everything an openly-gay elected official is supposed to do in a circumstance like this. If you're itching to send an outraged emails, Sloggers, I'd urge you to send emails to the six Fort Worth councilmembers who haven't joined with Burns and two of his colleagues in calling for a full and independent investigation into the appalling raid on the Rainbow Lounge.
Councilmember W.B. "Zim" Zimmerman
817-392-8803
District3@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Danny Scarth
817-392-8804
District4@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Frank Moss
817-392-8805
District5@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Jungus Jordan
817-392-8806
District6@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Carter Burdette
817-392-8807
District7@fortworthgov.org
And send an email to the mayor, Mike Moncreif, who has yet to make a statement:
Mayor Mike Moncrief
817-392-6118
mike.moncrief@fortworthgov.org
Tell them the whole country is shocked and outraged and that you're appalled by their failure to join their colleagues Joel Burns, Sal Espino, and Kathleen Hicks in calling for an investigation into the raid on the Rainbow Lounge and the assault on Chad Gibson.
Archive
May 2009June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
February 2010
March 2010
April 2010
May 2010
June 2010
July 2010
August 2010
September 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2011
February 2011
March 2011
April 2011
May 2011
June 2011
February 2012
March 2012